Coriolis mass flow meters are used in many cases for determining mass flow of a fluid in a section of a pipeline. In this, the fluid flows through at least one oscillating measuring tube. In most Coriolis mass flow meters, one oscillation exciter and two oscillation sensors are arranged on the measuring tube. Measuring tube and fluid form, together, an oscillatable system, which is normally excited to its resonance frequency. The resonance frequency depends on, among other things, the material and the dimensions of the measuring tube. It varies, additionally, with the density of the flowing fluid. In some cases, the measuring tube is not excited to the resonance frequency, but, instead, to a neighboring frequency. The two oscillation sensors register the oscillatory motion of the measuring tube at two locations spaced from one another in the direction of flow and convert the oscillatory movements of the measuring tube to sensor signals. Both sensor signals have the same frequency as the oscillatory movement of the measuring tube, but they are shifted in phase relative to one another. The phase shift between these two sensor signals is a measure of the mass flow rate.
The sensor signals are evaluated in a signal processing unit and converted into a signal proportional to the mass flow rate. Besides the mass flow rate, other properties of the fluid can also be determined, for example its density. For this purpose, the frequency of the oscillatory motion of the measuring tube is evaluated and, if need be, the temperature of the flowing fluid is determined.
Such a Coriolis mass flow meter is known from the commonly-owned German patent application DE 100 45 537.
Often in industrial processes, the concentration of a solution is a measured quantity of interest. This is true for mass- and volume-concentrations, as well as for various industry-specific concentration specifications, such as °Oechsle in wine-production or °Plato in beer brewing. A basic ingredient for the measurement of concentration in most cases is the density of the fluid. Correspondingly, various density functions, for example °Brix, °Plato, °Balling, °API, are already implemented in the Coriolis mass flow meters Promass 63 and Promass 83 of the firm Endress+Hauser®.
Various concentration measures are, however, not defined unequivocally in the literature. Different users apply different definitions, which then lead to different concentration values.
In the case of conventional Coriolis mass flow meters, the output of different concentration values is only conditionally possible.
It is an object of the invention to provide a Coriolis mass flow meter for concentration measurement, which is simple and economical to manufacture.
This object is achieved by a Coriolis mass flow meter for concentration measurement including a digital signal processor , which determines from the senior signals and the temperature signals of a transducer the density of the flowing fluid, and a concentration evaluating unit connected thereafter, in which a concentration curve is stored.
Advantageous further developments of the invention are given in the dependent claims.
An essential idea of the invention is the providing in the Coriolis mass flow meter for measuring concentration a unit, in which a predeterminable concentration curve is stored.
There follows a more detailed explanation of the invention on the basis of an example of an embodiment, as illustrated in the drawings, which show as follows: